SDSU's Integrated Regenerative Research Institute aims to harness the power and healing potential of stem cells.

World-renowned cardiac researchers will speak at a Nov. 8 symposium on campus, including Mark Sussman, chief research scientist, SDSU Heart Institute.

Every year, San Diego State applauds its faculty and professors who have made great strides in scholarship and research through the Albert W. Johnson University Research Lecture.

In the world of bacteria, there are the good, the bad and the ugly. Ugly bacteria are those that take human lives quickly and ruthlessly—like the virulent strain of E. coli that killed 52 people in northern Germany within five weeks last summer. These highly dangerous microbes adapt and survive by developing resistance to the broad spectrum antibiotics commonly prescribed by doctors.

San Diego State professor Dr. Forest Rohwer was winner of the 2011 College of Sciences Monty Award, an Alumni Association award, given to outstanding faculty members from each of SDSU’s seven colleges.

An important development in cardiac health research was made, thanks to a study out of San Diego State. SDSU post-doctoral scholar Sadia Mohsin's study, conducted with SDSU biology Professor Mark Sussman as part of the university’s Molecular Biology Laboratory Heart Institute, showed that genetically engineered human cardiac stem cells helped repair damaged heart tissue and improved function after heart attacks in mice.

Student recipients

This year's recipients include:

• Katie Barott, cell/molecular biology
• Travis Cottage, cell/molecular biology
• Shirin Doroudgar, cell/molecular biology
• Marcel Hetu, chemistry/biochemistry
• Manna Iwabuchi, analytical chemistry
• Martin Kandes, mathematics and statistics
• Lucie Nguyen, mathematics and statistics
• Pearl Quijada, cell/molecular biology
• Chelsea Rochman, ecology
• John B. Ruedas, cell/molecular biology
• Aleksandr Stotland, cell/molecular biology
• Ginger Tsueng, cell/molecular biology
• Stan Walls, cell/molecular biology
• Robert Wilson, Jr., chemistry

San Diego State University researchers continue to be among the most productive in the nation, securing 799 research grants and contracts worth nearly $145.2 million during the last fiscal year.

The search for a cure for Alzheimer's disease has led San Diego researchers to a humble marine creature called the sea squirt

Explorations of the surrounding seas by San Diego-based researchers including SDSU Professor Forest Rohwer found corals were dead or diseased, sharks and other large predators were scarce and only small fish darted past slime-covered reefs.

SDSU Biology Professor Sandford Bernstein is featured in a new Multiple Dystrophy Assn video. All the research lab shots were done in the Bernstein lab or the SDSU electron microscopy lab. The people from the Bernstein lab are Chi Lee (PhD student), Anju Melkani (research technician) and Meera Viswanathan (MS student).

At SDSU's BioScience Center, researchers are studying why some people develop heart disease and others don't.

Can science unlock the secret of the heart's regenerative powers?